Tuesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 30, 2020

Matthew 8:23-27

As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”

Immediately following the Sermon on the Mount, St. Matthew presents several miracles in quick succession, each of which showing a different aspect of the Law-giver’s power, and together which validate his teachings in the three preceding chapters of this Gospel.  So far we have seen him heal a leper, which shows his power to heal.  Next, he heal’s the centurion’s slave, which makes clear that the Lord can heal from a distance.  Following that, he heals Peter’s mother-in-law and then a large number of the sick.  This reveals that his power cannot be exhausted.  In the reading for today, we see the Lord Jesus calming a storm, and here we see particularly his power over the forces of nature.  

“Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea.”  The Sea of Galilee is about 13 miles long by 8 miles wide, and is a freshwater lake.  At its deepest point, it is about 140 feet in depth, almost half the length of an American football field.  The boat in which the Apostles and Jesus were traveling would have been about twenty feet long.  A storm coming upon a fishing boat in the middle of the lake poses a mortal threat to all aboard.  There would not have been enough time to get to shore.  As it was, “the boat was being swamped by waves.”

“But he was asleep.”  Amidst the fury of the storm and the cries and frantic bailing of the Apostles, Jesus slept.  This shows the extent to which his physical condition was reduced by his nonstop work since the day before.  It also shows an absolute trust in his Father that he could rest safely anywhere.  Matthew presents quite a scene.  Jesus and the Apostles had embarked while it was still daylight.  Enormous dark clouds fill the sky as though at a moment’s notice.  The heaving lake casts the boat up in the air and down nearly to the lake bottom.  The Apostles bail out the water, but not quite fast enough.  They can hardly hear each other’s shouts and cries, and they can only see when the lightning blasts at them.  Somewhere, in the midst of the hurling chaos, the Lord Jesus sleeps.  The rain pours onto him and runs down his face, but it does not disturb his peace.  

“They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ ”  Perhaps the storm and its violence had raged for only five or ten minutes.  It does not take long for a really bad storm to destroy a boat.  But the Apostles pray like they have never prayed before.  Their prayer, though, is not confident but despairing.  The fact that they did not dream that Jesus could command the weather is shown by their wondering afterwards, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obeys?”  They say to him, “Lord, save us!” not because they believe he can, but because there was nothing left to do.  They had tried everything else first, and they were going to die.

“Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”  They could not have predicted this response.  He is not terrified at their predicament; he is perturbed at them.  We ought to think about this.  It is as though he were saying that their own fear, a fear that characterized their lives, had brought the storm about.  The Lord seems to blame them for the storm.  Jesus says to them, in the Greek text, Why are you δειλοί [deloi].  The Greek word is a substantive adjective in the plural, describing “you”, which is plural.  Literally, the Greek means, Why are you cowards? or even, Why are you unmanly men?  The English translation we have in the reading turns the Greek adjective into a verb and so warps the actual meaning somewhat. With the question, Why are you cowards? in the present tense, Jesus is not asking why they are frightened at this particular moment, but why are they fearful in an abiding sense.  He is saying to them, You have always been cowards.  This is who you are.  Jesus does not speak to them in this way in order to gratuitously humiliate them, but to teach them a very necessary lesson.  Now is he disgusted with them, as though finding out for the first time that they were cowards.  If this were true, he would have let the boat sink and then calmly walked across the water to the opposite shore.

“Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.”  First, he rebukes his disciples, then the winds and the sea.  Both men and sea were acting according to their natures, but Jesus is not satisfied with their present weaknesses.  By calming the storm so that there is “great calm”, Jesus is showing the Apostles the faith he desires for them.  That is, we can understand the sea storm as a manifestation of the fear, the trepidation, the tumult within the hearts of the Apostles.  Jesus quiets it and shows them the state for which they must strive, the perfect peace that comes with perfect faith and trust.  Indeed, the trust in his Father that Jesus showed in his sleeping.  One day, the Apostles would face down their persecutors and rejoice in their suffering for Christ.  This is their beginning, when they see themselves as they are.

“What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”  Whether we want to admit it or not, we live in fear, too.  Only the saints do not.  Fear controls us so much that we hardly notice it is there.  Only love and faith drive out fear.  Let us pray for the grace to live as the Apostles came to live, really living life as free men and women, living life filled and transformed by our faith in Christ, in “the great calm” of God.

The Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Monday, June 29, 2020

From the earliest times, St, Peter and St. Paul were considered by the Christians as the greatest of the Apostles, and revered them on nearly equal terms.  St. Clement, the third bishop of Rome (88-95 A.D.), writes in the fifth chapter of his Letter to the Corinthians: “Through envy and jealousy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been persecuted and put to death.  Let us set before our eyes the illustrious Apostles.  Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors, and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned.  After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience.”  Clement would have been writing less than thirty years after Peter and Paul were martyred.

We can know something of these two great followers of the Lord Jesus from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.  The latter book, indeed, was written by St. Luke, a friend and fellow missionary with Paul, whom Paul himself names “the most dear physician”.  We can also learn a bit about them from what we find in the works of the early Fathers, just a few words in passing.  Peter was said to have had at least one daughter, and that his wife traveled with him to Rome, where she was arrested and martyred before he was.  His last words to her, as she was being led away, were, “Remember the Lord!”  St. Paul was said to have been bald and short, and to have had large, penetrating eyes.  By his own admission, Paul was not particularly physically prepossessing, but his words were piercing.  In various apocryphal works, Peter and Paul are depicted as having met up in  Rome after various adventures, and to have faced the emperor Nero together in a contest of miracles with Simon Magus.  Peter is shown as the more forceful of the two in these accounts.  

We glorify God for his having given us this fisherman and this tent-maker as the first leaders of the Church, and as examples of how he uses the little ones of this world to confound the greater ones.  May we ever profit from their intercession.

A translation of the Collect prayer from the 1962 Missal:

O God, Who made this day holy by the martyrdom of Your Apostles Peter and Paul, grant Your Church to follow in all things the teaching of those from whom she first received the faith. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, June 28, 2020

Matthew 10:37–42

Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple— amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

For many people today, even for Christians, this is a “hard” saying.  For many of the Lord’s early disciples, in John 6, 61, his commandment to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood was σκληρός [skleros, from which we get the word “sclerosis”], usually translated as “hard”, but its meaning is more like “harsh”.  While Catholics accept the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, many struggle with the words, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  Part of accepting these words is to understand what they mean, and so we should keep in mind that in the mindset of a person living in the Ancient Near East, “love” and “hate” were synonyms were “to obey” and “to disobey”.  Thus, Jesus is saying that a person who puts obedience to his parents above obedience to him is not worthy of him.  On the face of it, this is a remarkable statement to make.  No teacher or philosopher could make it.  Only God could.  But if Jesus is God, the statement is the most reasonable thing in the world.  It might remain a hard teaching to follow, but no one can quarrel with its logic.  At the same time, the Christian knows that Jesus does not merely command, but he provides the grace necessary for carrying out the command.

Many examples exist of people putting obedience to God ahead of everything else.  I have known young men who were disowned by their parents when they entered the seminary.  I know a young woman whose family cut her off when she entered a convent.  In the year 203, a young noble woman named Perpetua was imprisoned and sentenced to die in the arena in Carthage for professing the Faith.  Her aged father came to her and begged her to recant, but she would not do it.  She died as a martyr soon afterwards.  These are fairly obvious examples, but we must also take care not to prefer obedience to addictions and bad habits or immoral bosses to that owed to Jesus. Jesus comes first because Jesus is everything. 

“And whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  The cross was a horrific punishment meted out to escaped slaves and to rebels.  To “take up his cross” means to accept this punishment for one or another of these crimes.  To “take up his cross” and follow after Jesus means to perform the works that Jesus did, which the world judges as crimes, and to accept this punishment, which the faithful consider glory.  Indeed, the one who takes up his cross and follows after Jesus is a rebel, a rebel against the idolatry of this world.  He is an escaped slave, too, for he has escaped the vile slavery of this world so as to enter into the freedom of the world to come.

Saturday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 26, 2020

Matthew 8:5-17

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.” And at that very hour his servant was healed. 

Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him. When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick, to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet: “He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

In yesterday’s Gospel reading, a leper addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  Here, a centurion does so, a most remarkable act.  As an officer in a legion of the Roman army, the ordinary centurion had command of a unit of about a hundred men, although higher grades of centurion commanded larger numbers.  He was the equivalent of a captain through the rank of lieutenant colonel of today.  The ordinary centurion was promoted from the enlisted men.  As the lowest in rank of the Roman officers, he exercised his role as enforcer of discipline and so formed the backbone of the legion.  The fact that a centurion of the Roman army deigned not only to speak with one of the common people of an occupied land, but to call him “Lord”, and then to ask for his help must have have come as something of a shock to the people witnessing it.  The Roman soldiers, and especially their centurions, were hated and feared by the Jewish populace, and for good reason.  The centurion here probably did not come alone.  A small retinue would have attended him.  Presumably the centurion spoke Greek to Jesus, although he may have employed the services of an Aramaic interpreter on this occasion.  That he addressed Jesus as “Lord” could have gotten him into serious trouble if this became known to his higher-ups.  In any encounter with the general population, the centurion himself would have been addressed as “lord”, and treated with deference.  The centurion’s “lord” was Caesar.  Thus, this account, early in Matthew’s Gospel, shows how the Gentiles would convert in the years after Pentecost, and their courage in doing so.  

“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”  Just as the leper humbly presented his need before his Lord, so does this centurion.  He does not attempt to persuade Jesus, he does not try to coerce him, he does not promise him money or favors.  The centurion comes before the One he acknowledges as the Lord who has care for him and simply states his need.  

“I will come and cure him.”  Jesus receives the centurion’s recognition and simply and clearly declares that he will take care of the matter.  Notice how the words and manner of the Lord compare with that of the soldier.  Jesus speaks and acts towards him in a way this man can understand, in the way he is accustomed to be spoken to by those over him.  Also, notice the Lord’s willingness to defile himself by entering the house of a Gentile, so much like his willingness to touch the leper.  This shows the Lord’s own fervent desire to save us, to “bear” the disease of our sin.

“Lord, I am not worthy.”  The centurion makes a statement that must have astonished the crowd even more than when he addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  “Lord” is a statement of faith; “I am not worthy” is a sign of the depths of his faith.  We ought to pause here to consider this man’s attitude, his motivations, his hopes.  His concern for his servant shows an admirable side to him.  Even if the slave possessed particularly rare skills, it is too much to think that his potential loss would have brought the centurion to call Jesus “Lord”.  The man’s subsequent words, “I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me”, tell us that here we have a man who understands himself, and others, in terms of his duty.  “Duty” for him means authority coupled with responsibility.  He is responsible for his slave, and Jesus, his Lord, is responsible for them both.  In addition, Jesus, as Lord, has the authority to heal whomever he wants.

Who is this slave?  The centurion describes his servant as a παῖς [pīs], not a δούλος [dūlos].  The latter is a menial slave, especially one that would work out of doors.  A παῖς, on the other hand, could mean “a boy”, “a girl”, “a child”, “a servant”, or, “a slave”.  In the Septuagint text of Isaiah 42, 1, which Matthew quotes in 12, 18, παῖς is to be understood as “servant”.  In his other usages of the word, it’s meaning as “little child” is understood, without any implications of servitude.  The parallel account in Luke 7, 2-9 describes the sick person as a δούλος, a slave of any age.  In addition, Luke provides the detail that the slave was “valuable” to the centurion, meaning that he was skilled.  It would seem most likely that the sick one is a slave of indeterminate age, but probably older than a child because he possessed valuable skills, and that the translator of Matthew’s Gospel from Hebrew into Greek simply used the two terms παῖς and δούλος interchangeably.  

Jesus registers amazement at the centurion’s faith, and he does this in order to point it up for the benefit of the onlookers: This uncircumcised man has more faith than any of you circumcised people who attend the synagogue and make pilgrimages to the Temple!  It would be on the same order of saying, This brick has more compassion than you do!  

“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”  Jesus dismisses the centurion with this assurance.  It is similar to the assurance the Lord gave to the leper: Jesus sent him to the Temple for the priests to examine him, and who will make his cure official — in this way the leper would have objective proof of his own healing, should any doubt linger.

In both accounts of the leper’s cure and that of the centurion’s slave, we see the eagerness of the Lord to save — there is no one whom he will not save, if only they would let him.

Friday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 26, 2020

Matthew 8:1-4

When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I will do it. Be made clean.” His leprosy was cleansed immediately. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”

Often when folks are looking for some kind of assistance, usually financial, they tell long and involved stories of bad luck or terrible loss, or of someone else’s  failure.  The people they go to for help, whether social workers, commuters, ministers, or priests listen with varying degrees of patience, wishing the speaker would simply state what he wants.  It is always the same story, when it comes to brass tacks, and the longer the story the less it hangs together, but unless the listener is pressed for time, he listens, and helps if he can.  

In the above account from St. Matthew’s Gospel, a leper approaches Jesus and says to him directly, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”  The Greek δύνασαί, here translated as “you can”, has the sense of “you are able”, or, “you have the power” to make me clean.  The leper acknowledges him as “Lord”, not “teacher”, which tells us that he recognizes himself as Christ’s subject.  Then he says to him, You have the power to make me clean, as though putting forward a claim on the Lord’s care, even reminding him of his responsibility.  The leper’s prayer — for that is what it is — possesses a marvelous concision.  He knows that Jesus and everyone else around him knows his condition.  The smell of his rotting flesh by itself would have given him away.

The leper says, “If you wish”, or, “If you will”.  He does not attempt to flatter Jesus, as many people looking for favors offer flattery in order to secure them.  His words are few and direct.  They reflect a faith that is also direct, a certainty that all is dependent on the will of the One before him.  “You can make me clean.”  It is not an order or a cringing plea, but a presentation of a need.  The man seems to have approached Jesus suddenly, casting aside the strict laws mandating that he keep a distance from those who were healthy.  Perhaps he had been taking refuge in one of the countless niches and caves in the mountains in that region, and come out rather abruptly when he saw Jesus descend after speaking to the crowd.  It is not clear how far the disease had progressed in his body, but it seems that he could still walk and communicate.  He also seems to be alone, rather than with a group of fellow sufferers, which strikes one as curious because they did live and move around in small groups.  Living outside, his clothing must have gotten ragged and he himself would have become disheveled, perhaps stooped over over a walking stick.  He would have been hungry, his scanty meals eaten at irregular times.  Even so, there was his faith, a bright flame among the spent charcoal.  

“You can make me clean.”  The leper lays his helplessness before Jesus along with his statement of faith.  There are no stories, no excuses, no blaming anyone for what has happened to him, no attempt to shame Jesus into helping him.  And Jesus “stretched out his hand, touched him.”  Jesus did not always touch the sick to heal them.  That he does so here is noteworthy because he touched a leper, rendering himself unclean.  Jesus was not afraid to make himself unclean.  He says to the leper, “I do will it.  Be made clean” (better translated as, I will it: Be made clean).  Here we see, in a fleeting moment, all that Jesus did in his life on earth: he touched humanity, leprous with sin, he healed those who presented themselves to him, seeking the cure only he could give, and in the process renders himself unclean — he takes on our uncleanness, “was made sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5, 21).  And in doing so, he saves us.  “His leprosy was cleansed immediately.”  That is, not by any natural means, but supernaturally.  Likewise, the conferral of baptism immediately cleanses a person from all sin, personal and original.  

Then Jesus says, “See that you tell no one.”  And he instructs him to follow the Mosaic Law so that he will be recognized by the authorities as cured.  But why would Jesus order him not to tell anyone?  It could not be that he wanted to conceal his power from public knowledge.  He had already openly performed a large number of miracles.  Perhaps this was a test of obedience meant for this man particularly.  Jesus often tested the individuals with whom he came into contact, as when he told the rich young man, “Why do you call me ‘good’?” (Mark 10, 18).  

So much occurs in this brief, laconic account.  Especially, we learn how to pray.  We go to God directly and ask for help, presenting both our need and our faith in him, and letting him help us in the way he judges best.

Thursday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 25, 2020

Matthew 7:21-29

Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’   Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.” 

Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  Many people call Jesus “Lord” with their mouths but call themselves “Lord” with their actions.  There are Protestant groups that teach that all a person needs to do to be saved is to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, basing this idea on Romans 10, 9: “For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him up from the dead, you shall be saved.”  But what St. Paul meant was a public confession.  It does not mean sitting safely in one’s room and whispering the words.  The public confession here is the ancient version of what is called “outing” or “coming out” in the modern vernacular.  A person who “came out” as a Christian in St. Paul’s day was risking his life by doing so, or at the very least risking family relationships, friendships, livelihoods, social standing, and one’s personal fortune.  Public confession of Christianity meant a thorough alteration of one’s life, from abstaining from meat sacrificed to idols, avoiding brothels, no longer attending the public games, abandoning previously held philosophies, and otherwise living a life that fairly isolated a person from society.  He understands that all that matters is being the “the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

“ ‘Did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ ”  That is, did we not seem to prophesy, or seem to drive out demons, or seem to do mighty deeds?  There are always those who believe they have great powers when in fact they do not.  They think that they perform great deeds, but they are fooling themselves.  The devil certainly knows better: “Now some also of the Jewish exorcists, who went about, attempted to invoke over them that had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying: ‘I conjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.’  And there were certain men, seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest, that did this. But the wicked spirit, answering, said to them: ‘Jesus I know: and Paul I know. But who are you?’ ” (Acts 19, 13-15).  Other folks, looking on, may think a person is performing a mighty deed in the name of Jesus, but only scrutiny of the person and of the deed reveals this: “Test everything: retain what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5, 21).  As for the expelling of demons, this is only accomplished by a priest appointed by a bishop for the task.

Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount in a very dramatic way, announcing that “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  This is not the teaching of a Pharisee, who could only say, He who listens to the word of God, etc.  Only the Son of God can say, These words of mine.  It is a majestic statement.  The Lord likens the one who listens to his words and acts on them as a “wise man” who built his house on “rock”.  The word “wise” may be better understood as “prudent”, “shrewd”, or “sensible”.  Because Jesus is making a definitive statement about the necessity for believing and acting on his teaching, we ought to be aware of what he means by the “rock” on which the wise man builds his house.  The other time in this Gospel that Jesus speaks of a rock is in 16, 18: “I say to you, you are Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my Church.”  As if to make his meaning absolutely clear, the Lord adds, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, which explains the full meaning of “the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house.  But it did not collapse.”  

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Luke 1:57–66, 80

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.

Looking back from two thousand years and considering how little is actually said about St. John the Baptist in the Gospels, it is hard for us to understand his importance at the time the Lord Jesus walked the earth.  For evidence of this, we need to recall the fact that all four Gospels deal with him, and that he is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.  We should also note that the Gospels tell us more about him than about any of the Apostles.  And if we read the accounts about John closely, we see that the Gospel writers are at pains to show that not only was John not the Messiah, but that he did not claim to be him, and even pointed out Jesus rather emphatically as the Messiah when he came.  There is also the case of Jesus going to John for baptism. St. Matthew, who wrote the first Gospel for the Jews at a time when many of John’s adherents were still alive, felt compelled to make clear that John was submitting to the will of Jesus rather than Jesus to John’s.  The Evangelists also tell of how, after his arrest by Herod, John sent his disciples to Jesus, and of how Jesus praises John.  All of this seems to indicate that even years after his death, John’s followers kept his memory alive and continued to play an important part in 

Jewish life for some time.  As a measure of his significance, St. Luke, writing for Gentile Christians for whom John the Baptist would have been an asterisk in the story of Jesus, spends much time rendering an account of his conception and birth.  In Acts 18, 24 - 19, 6, Luke writes of the eloquent Apollos, an Alexandrian who did not know the Baptism of Jesus but only that of Christ.  Luke then tells us of a group of believers in Ephesus who had received only the baptism of John.  This would have been perhaps twenty years after John’s death.  That there were still followers of John this late and this far afield from Judea helps us to see the range of his influence.  The attention paid to him by the Apostle John is such that the question must be raised as to whether one of the reasons for the writing of this Gospel was to convince the remaining followers of the preeminence of Jesus.  The birth of John the Baptist has been celebrated since at least the 500’s, and it is notable that he shares the distinction with the Blessed Virgin Mary as the only saints whose birthdays are celebrated by the Church.

“They were going to call him Zechariah after his father.” The idea of relatives or synagogue officials believing that they, not the mother, should name her child might seem outrageous to us.  However, we see this all the time in modern society, that people are expected to follow certain prescribed paths.  One of these “paths” these days is the norm of premarital or even extramarital sex.  Another is that a young person must get into a certain level of college immediately after high school.  Many other pressures or expectations exist within society and families, such as the expectation many parents have that their children will produce “their” grandchildren.  However, as Christians, we must ignore all coercion, even when kindly meant, so that the only voice we follow is that of Almighty God.

“No. He will be called John.” Elizabeth remains steadfast, obeying the injunction of the angel who gave her child’s name as John.  Luke does not tell us directly, but leads us to assume that Zechariah had not communicated the Angel Gabriel’s words to his wife.  Zechariah’s written confirmation of their son’s name as “John” is regarded by the crowd of relatives as miraculous.  Her resistance to social pressure is a sign of her son’s later flouting of social convention in deference to the will of God.  As believers, you and I “go before the Lord to prepare his way”, as Zechariah says to his newborn son in Luke 1, 76, with our words and works, unafraid of social pressure to conform to the way of the world, resolute in doing the will of God.

“Then fear came upon all their neighbors.”  The sudden realization that the divine is present among us frightens the worldly, the ungodly, because they feel threatened.  They go through life in denial about the reality of God, even claiming to be atheists and agnostics, but his existence is plain to anyone with eyes.  The thought that he is “down here” rather than “out there” disturbs even some believers, although only those of the lukewarm sort.  We see this on a grand scale with the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, when Jesus walks among them, curing the sick, expelling demons, and raising the dead.  They would go to any extreme to keep from admitting the truth of his divinity to themselves.

When those around us see that we practice a different way of life than what they expect, they say to themselves the modern equivalent of, “What then, shall this child be?”  But let it be said of us, as was said of St. John the Baptist, that “the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert” — the world — “until the day of his manifestation to Israel”, until the Lord Jesus comes again.

Tuesday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 23, 2020

I’m on vacation this week.  People may wonder, What does a priest do on vacation?  Well, many of us catch up on our sleep.  Some guys sit out on the beach or in the mountains and just look.  Some travel to see family.  I drove down to spend time with my sister, who lives north of Richmond.  We often vacation together.

Matthew 7:6, 12-14

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces. Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

Jesus says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine.”  The Jews referred to the Gentiles as dogs.  We see the Phoenician woman abasing herself to Jesus in order to win help for her daughter, when Jesus at first refuses: “Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table” (Matthew 15, 27).  In the Ancient Near East, dogs mostly roamed about wild.  They were carrion, eating the flesh of soldiers killed in battle as well as the bodies of people or animals that were left outside to rot.  As a result, they were considered disgusting, and were both hated and feared.  With this in mind, it might seem unnecessary for Jesus to command his disciples not to “give what is holy to dogs”, but we have to consider what did Jesus mean by “what is holy” and who he meant by “dogs”.  In the case of the Phoenician woman, we see Jesus saying to her in his refusal, “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs” (Matthew 15, 26).  He is saying, It is not good for me to take the bread of the grace of God that I am feeding to the children of Israel, and feed the Gentiles with it.  A careful reading reveals that Jesus was identifying himself as the One who fed Israel, and so it was he who decided who was included in “Israel”, that is, who was worthy.  After this woman showed her faith in him, calling him “Lord”, he judged her worthy of the miracle she sought.  From this, we can see that what Jesus says to the disciples is, Do not give what is holy to those who are undeserving — in fact, to those who, like wild swine, would destroy it and threaten them.  

Now, while Jesus commissioned his Apostles to spread the Gospel throughout the world, he also said that they would find people who would reject the Gospel (cf. Luke 9, 5), and thus prove their unworthiness.  The Apostles were to leave these folks to themselves, and move on to others who would be receptive to the message of salvation.  The Apostles were not to waste their precious time.

St. Matthew seems to simply present brief sayings of Jesus in this section of the Gospel, and they are not necessarily related.  This is the case with the words our Lord utters next: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”  This is the so-called Golden Rule.  It is another way of saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  While the wording is very simple, the meaning is surprisingly complex when we examine it. For instance, suppose I would have others give me money.  But because I would have them do this for me, I should do this for others.  The questions then arise: Do I give money to every person I meet?  Do I give money that I need to feed myself and my family?  Do I give money to people who give evidence that they would use it to harm themselves or others?  Do I take out loans in order to continue giving away money?  The answer here is to understand this in Christian terms.  “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” means to do what is good for the person’s salvation, first of all.  It means to share with those who are in need, secondly.  It does not mean to give away money necessary for my good and that of those for whom I am responsible because I would not, as a Christian, want anyone to describe themselves in this way for my sake.  Similarly, as a Christian we apply the virtue of prudence to our giving so that our limited resources may do the most good, beginning with ourselves and family members.  The Golden Rule must be understood within the Christian context in order for it to be actually beneficial.  As an example, the Good Samaritan pays for the severely wounded man’s medical care and lodging, but he does not offer to replace the property he lost.  He is a generous man, but Jesus does not say that he was a particularly wealthy man so that he could do this.

Lastly, in the Gospel reading for today, we hear Jesus speaking of the narrow way.  On various occasions, as recorded in the Gospels, people come to Jesus and ask him if only a few people will be saved.  Of course, the question they are actually asking is, Will I be saved?  Jesus consistently emphasizes the “narrow way” or narrow “gate” one must travel through in order to be saved. His answer is that while many souls may be saved, the number will be a small percentage of all souls.  This is both an encouragement and a warning.

Monday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 22, 2020

Matthew 7:1-5

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”

“Stop judging that you may not be judged.”  In order to understand what Jesus is saying here, it is necessary to know what he is not saying.  Jesus is not not saying that his followers should not have opinions or make critical evaluations.  Indeed, he tells the Apostles to be “wise as serpents” (Matthew 10, 16).  We should also note that just after Jesus tells them not to “judge”, he instructs them “not to give that which is holy to dogs” (v. 6).  He expects them, then, to distinguish some people as dogs (the Gentiles) and some people as worthy for that which is holy.  Jesus also gives detailed instructions for dealing with an erring brother, in Matthew 18, 15-17.  The Lord clearly intends for the Church to make a judgment in this case and, if necessary, to allow the offender to suffer the consequences of his actions.  We see St. Paul judging a man who is living immorally with his mother, in 1 Corinthians 4, 4-5, and excommunicating him.  We note, though, that these judgments are made concerning a person’s exterior actions; they are not made with regards to the person’s interior — his understanding, motivation, intent, and things of this kind.  As St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us, only God can see inside of a person and know what is there, and so only God can judge his heart.  Yet we are able to judge a man’s actions and hold him responsible for them.

As an aide, these days people often tell other people not to “judge” them, which in this sense means not to have an unfavorable opinion of them.  But it is not fair to demand this of people, who have a right to form their own opinions.  Interestingly, a person making such a demand does so out of guilt — otherwise, there is no sense in doing this.  This person is fully aware that what he is doing is wrong.  He simply does not want anyone to reinforce his own guilt.

When Jesus speaks of splinters and beams, he is reminding us that with our fallen human nature and sins, we are not in a position to judge the hearts of others, only his acts.  He intimates that in attempting to judge hearts, we usurp the place of God, and we shall be judged harshly by him as a result.  We recall the parable of the weeds and the wheat, in Matthew 13, 24-30: the landowner allows the weeds and the wheat to grow together until the day of the harvest.  The wheat does not recognize and uproot the weeds, nor does the landowner permit his servants to do this.  At harvest time, however, all is to be gathered together and then carefully separated, with the weeds to be burnt.  This is for two reasons: first, some weeds closely resemble wheat, and only someone who really knows his job, like the landowner, can tell them apart; second, the weeds and wheat grow together and become intertwined, further confusing someone who might be trying to get rid of the weeks.

Let us do what we are told then, and no more, so that we do not encroach on God’s prerogative.  But let us not be afraid to form opinions based on the best evidence available to us so that we may keep ourselves safe and preserve order in society and in the Church.

The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time, June 21, 2020

Matthew 10:26–33

Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

“What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”  Jesus says that he speaks to the Apostles in “the darkness”.  We might wonder about this since we see the Lord presented in the Gospels as constantly speaking to large crowds.  He often argues in public with the Pharisees and the scribes.  Only on rare occasions does he do anything hidden, as when he brings in only Peter, James, and John and the parents when he raises the daughter of Jairus from the dead. Still, five people see this happen, and then the crowd outside the house quickly learns about it.  Indeed, the Lord seems to contradict what he says here when he reminds the Sanhedrin, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither all the Jews resort: and in secret I have spoken nothing” (John 18, 20).  

One way to consider what he means is to keep in mind how Jesus speaks about darkness in the Gospels, such as how the thief breaks in and steals at night (cf. Matthew 24, 23).  In the Gospel of St. John, we read that the Light, Jesus, shone in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it.  The darkness was a place or a condition of incomprehension, even of danger.  Good is done in the daylight, but evil in the night.  In Greek mythology, Night was the child of Chaos.  Thus, we can see what Jesus says about speaking in the darkness as speaking in this world, which is devoted to ambition, lust, pride, and the other deadly sins.  What Jesus says to the Apostles while he is in the world, they are to preach far and wide, shouting it “from the rooftops”.  We can also understand this speaking in the darkness as the Lord revealing the mysteries of salvation to the Apostles, who often find them difficult and obscure, but to whom the Holy Spirit will impart great clarity at Pentecost.  

Jesus tells the Apostles twice in these few verses to not be afraid.  They had little to fear during the Lord’s lifetime: he is saying this for them to remember later.  We hear this admonition throughout the New Testament: The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph each are told by angels to not be afraid at the beginnings of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and we hear it in the last book in the New Testament, that of Revelation.  This is one of the essential messages God has for the Christian, and fostering the virtue of hope is a critical occupation for the believer.  Hope distinguishes the faithful just as despair characterizes secular people, for whom this world is all there is.

Saturday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

Matthew 6:24-34

Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

In the ancient Middle East, a particular language developed for communication between kings and vassals, and rulers and subjects.  Equals would refer to each other as “brothers”, as in, “The King of Tyre sends this letter to his brother, the King of Damascus.”  A superior would refer to his subject or vassal as his “son”, and a subject or vassal would refer to his superior as his “father”.  We see this throughout the 13th century B.C. Amarna letters, for example.  In addition, in keeping with this kind of speaking, obedience owed to a superior and the benefits provided by a superior was referred to as “love”.  “I love my father, the King of Sidon” means, “I obey my superior, the King of Sidon.”  A King who suspects a vassal of plotting against him or withholding tribute might write to him, “Why does my son hate me, since I have loved him?”

We see this language here, when Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”  The slave or servant of one master cannot obey an interloper.  It might cost him his life.  A slave or servant could only have one rightful master, the one who purchased or inherited him.  The idea that another person could come along, no matter how powerful or rich, and command a slave not his own would have been ridiculous to people living in the time of Christ.  Thus, Jesus is saying, He will either disobey the one and obey the other, or obey the one and disobey the other.  He cannot offer obedience to two masters.

Jesus speaks of God and mammon as two masters.  The word “mammon” is an old Aramaic or Syrian word that became the name for the Syrian god of wealth.  We should understand that Jesus is speaking, then, of the true God and a “false” god.  Put this way, only a fool would obey a god that cannot benefit its servant.  Further, a servant who obeys the false god cannot hedge his bets by trying to obey the true God at the same time.  “You cannot serve God and mammon.”  We can also understand mammon as more than a god of monetary wealth.  Mammon is the god of careerism, the god of the stomach, the god of popularity, the god of societal or political position.  The person who dies in this god’s service will not inherit eternal life because he does not and cannot offer it.

The words the Lord speaks here of not worrying about what to wear and what to eat would have consoled the first hearers of Matthew’s Gospel, Galilean Christians whose houses and possessions were confiscated by the local synagogue, and whose livelihoods disappeared.  Shunned by their Jewish neighbors and hunted by the authorities from Jerusalem, their state would have been very desperate.  The Lord here promises to take care of them, and even assures them that the Father sees their beauty, for if a wildflower is more glorious than Solomon, the believer in his Son is more glorious still in the eyes of God.  These words console us, as well.  We need not toil in service to Mammon in order to look beautiful or to be able to eat and have a safe place to sleep.  Although at times even King David and the Prophets had to flee into the wilderness from their enemies, the Lord protected them and provided for them.

The ancient slave obeyed his master out of fear.  We obey our Master as a sign of our love for him.  And while the suffering Job says, “There [in the sleep of death] the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest.  There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are both there; and the slave is free from his master” (Job 3, 17-19), the Lord Jesus tells those who love him, “I will give you rest.”

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday, June 19, 2020

Matthew 11:25–30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was established for the world in 1856 by Pope Pius IX after it had earlier been established for the region of France.  Devotion to the wonderful love and mercy of Jesus Christ for us began to coalesce around devotion to his Heart in the Middle Ages.  At that time, it was believed that the heart was the seat of the mind, that is, the intellect and the will.  The devotion to the Lord’s “Heart”, then, is not to the physical organ but rather to this merciful love, which the Lord exposed in all his works and deeds for us, and which was dramatically exposed on the Cross, where his side was pierced by a lance.  We recall his words at the Last Supper: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15, 13).  In the 17th century, the Visitation nun St. Margaret Mary received visions of the Lord in which he told her of the love of his Sacred Heart and encouraged devotion to it.  About a hundred years after the established of the Feast, Pope Pius XII wrote a magnificent tribute to it in his encyclical, Haureatis Aquas, named from Isaiah 12, 3: “You will draw water joyfully from the springs of the Savior” (according to the Vulgate, from the Septuagint).    

In the reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel, we hear the Lord pray to his Father, “You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones.”  “These things” are the teachings of the Gospel.  The “wise and the learned”: St. Thomas Aquinas memorably comments that the Lord did not choose for his Apostles Plato and Aristotle, but rather Peter and Andrew.  “To little ones”: the Greek has the word νηπίοις, that is, neh-pí-ois, which has the primary meaning of “infants”.  When applied to adults, it means something like “simpletons”, or “the weak-minded”, or merely, “the uneducated”.  It is not a word a person would like to be described with.  Jesus uses this word in order to emphasize the absolutely free nature of the gift the Father has given these Apostles, and to us as well.  We recall St. Paul’s words, “For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But the foolish things of the world had God chosen, that he may confound the wise” (1 Corinthians 26-27).

“You who are weary and burdened”: Jesus is speaking these words to his Apostles after they have returned from preaching in the towns and preparing the way for his own visit to them.  The Lord is here consoling his faithful ones who strive for his honor and glory, and for the salvation of souls.  “Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest for yourselves.”  These words seem to present a contradiction.  A “yoke” implied pulling a plow.  How would this allow for rest?  Jesus here shows the contrast between his Law and all other laws.  The law of Jesus is love, and the “rest” is on his breast (cf. the Beloved Disciple reclining on the breast of Jesus in John 13, 23).  Further, this rest which the faithful will find is eternal, in heaven.  “For I am meek and humble of heart.”  The Greek πραύ̈ς, “prous”, is found again in Matthew 11, 29, which paraphrases Zechariah 9, 9: “Your King comes to you, gentle, and mounted on an ass,” and is applied to the Lord triumphantly entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  And, ταπεινὸς, “tap-eh-nós”, “meek” or “humble” of heart, approachable and compassionate, One upon whose breast a weary disciple may indeed recline.

Thursday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June 18, 2020

Matthew 6:7-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This is how you are to pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

Jesus says, “In praying, do not babble.”  The Greek word translated here as “babble” actually means to stammer or stutter, that is, to speak unintelligibly or without meaning.  Since the gods to whom the pagans prayed did not exist, this was a fitting way for the pagans to speak.  But in praying to the true and living God, one must take care to speak with at least as much dignity and respect as for speaking to an earthly monarch.  

Having addressed the question of how to pray, the Lord Jesus next tells us what to pray.  The prayer he teaches is the one we call The Lord’s Prayer, or, the Our Father.  It is a short, concise, very direct prayer.  Not a word in it is wasted or could be taken out of it.  No word inserted in it could improve it.  With this prayer, the believer asks for all that is necessary to live a life

 pleasing to God, and for protection against persecution and the devil. 

We ought to understand this prayer given to us by our Lord better than we do so that we can pray it with greater understanding and devotion.  The English translation we use today goes back before the year 1540 and many of the words and some of the grammar has changed since then.  Here is a translation from the Latin and Greek that is hopefully clearer:

“Our Father, who is in heaven,

may your name be sanctified:

may you kingdom come,

may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us,

and do not put us to the test

but deliver us from the evil one.”

A couple of notes: That this is meant primarily as a public prayer is clear from the use of “our” Father.  The main request is for the second coming of Christ for judgment.  The petitions under this one are for help in preparing for it.  “Daily bread” is in the version in Luke’s Gospel, not in Matthew’s.  In Matthew’s, Christ directs us to ask for “super-substantial bread” (the Greek word is invented for the occasion).  We might understand this as “super-abundant” bread, both in terms of quantity and quality — i.e. “the Bread of the angels”.  The “test” here is that about which Jesus spoke in Luke 22, 31: “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.”  This is persecution, which separates the faithful from the unfaithful.  “Deliver us from the evil one.”  By strengthening us against temptation.